🎄Archers thread #122: Deck the Hall with Eddie, Freddie 🎵 'Tis the Season to be jolly (but orange juice for you, Alice)

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads.

All views on The Archers welcome here! New blood welcomed. We don't all agree on all points and most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you love Bert Fry’s poetry (as I do), or other unusual views.

Spoilers: not on this thread, please. We don't wait for the omnibus to discuss the weeknight episodes, but we do try our best to avoid cross-contamination from www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3853783--The-Archers-spoilers-thread-5-Cant-wait-for-7-02pm-Join-us-here, where spoilers are positively welcomed!

For newer listeners, lurkers or those who just have no idea what we're talking about, @DadDadDad has created this useful thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3557323-For-Archers-fans-a-guide-to-acronyms-on-the-long-running-discussion-threads-and-any-other-meta-thread-questions-you-may-have - BOOP point for him! (See thread for explanation.)

Thanks to @C8H10N4O2 for requesting an annoyingly cheerful thread title which might take us up to Christmas and to @Prestissimo for the title suggestion. I was strongly tempted by @LillianGish’s suggestion: Eddie’s turkeys, Freddie’s show, village green with lights aglow, Stir Up Sunday, Deck the Hall, Merry Christmas one and all - with apologies to Bert Fry and @R4’s suggestion Wassail to the Ambridge Not-A-Panto where Freddie gets nine LESSONS in directing from CAROLe Lynda. Top work, all!

Three days to go until we can return to Ambridge.

My list for Father Christmas

In the next few weeks I’d like:

• Freddie’s show to be a huge success

• Philip and Gavin to be driven out of the village with pitchforks into the waiting arms of the police, and the three ‘horses’ rescued and taken in by kind people who will help them turn their lives around

• Pip to take a perpetual vow of silence and leave for a nunnery

• a terrific Grundy Christmas (although the travails of Alice and Chris will overshadow things)

• Alice to lose the baby, as this seems the least grim option for us listeners; she leaves Chris and makes a fresh start of some kind

What do you all want for Christmas from The Archers?

Dang! If I hadn't stopped to correct a typo ...

Joyeux Noel PPE

And you Lil'G!

- this thread is the ultimate in social distancing at Christmas

But Caroline being widowed very quickly was a terrible experience for her.

Sorry, I am 47 and no way would I be marrying someone in their seventies- most people with parents that age are at the stage of planning ahead for caring for them as they age.

Tracy is being a carer for her Dad at the moment. Does she really need to repeat the process?

I am 47 and no way would I be marrying someone in their seventies - I think it's too simplistic to think you wouldn't do it so no-one else would. In any case not all 73-year-olds are equal - as PPE has already pointed out, despite his age Oliver is meant to sound like a catch. He certainly is in my vision of him. As for his needing a carer, I should think that he would be one of the few people in Tracy's life who doesn't need care and might actually be able to care for her because at the moment she's pretty much on her own trying to be all things to all people. And even if he did ultimately end up needing care, he has enough money to be able to pay for it (rather like his predecessor at GG Jick Wooley).

I'm wondering if the slavery storyline wrap up will involve Victoria getting busted and throwing Phillip under the bus.

I found last nights episode quite moving, the way Victoria and Phillip were talking about actual human beings was so depressingly believable. I live in Lincolnshire and slavery is a big problem here.

Can someone please remind me, who is Brad and Chelsea's Dad?

I don't know if we know who Brad and Chelsea's Dad i, do we?

@LillianGish

I am 47 and no way would I be marrying someone in their seventies - I think it's too simplistic to think you wouldn't do it so no-one else would. In any case not all 73-year-olds are equal - as PPE has already pointed out, despite his age Oliver is meant to sound like a catch. He certainly is in my vision of him. As for his needing a carer, I should think that he would be one of the few people in Tracy's life who doesn't need care and might actually be able to care for her because at the moment she's pretty much on her own trying to be all things to all people. And even if he did ultimately end up needing care, he has enough money to be able to pay for it (rather like his predecessor at GG Jick Wooley).

This is Archers chat not AIBU!

AskingQuestions probably knows

She'd been in a relationship with someone called Den

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/gQ9f0WVGpJFgfZvrRNdZcH/tracy-horrobin

before; but they don't say he was the children's father.

Again, in addition to everything Lil'G has said, (and Oliver being rich enough not to need a partner's unpaid servitude is crucial, surely) if Tracy takes up with him, thus leapfrogging several rungs of the class ladder, I wouldn't be surprised if Brad and Chelsea's other parent(s?) suddenly remember their Ambridge offspring.

🧼

just listening to the repeat and had a blinding flash of insight (it had to happen once in my life)
Gavin complained that Philip had no idea what it was like living with the horses in lockdown.
He has Stockholm syndrome.
Usually seen in victims, but here in the perpetrator.

Found it for you Still! Lima Syndrome.

Fascinating.

interesting!

I’m quite worried for Gavin now (as well as B, K and J, of course). Actually being at the sale to Victoria makes him as guilty as his father. He knew where the boys were being taken when they were being trafficked across the country. It may have been a reluctant sale on his part and we know he has developed some sort of bond with them, but at the end of the day he was there when the price was negotiated and when the hammer came down. May be he and Kirsty will go and rescue them or buy them back but try explaining that to the cops.

It was a very well-written scene and I felt quite sick at the end of it.

I wonder what is going to happen to Grey Gables? Oliver and Tracey are too much of an age gap (and are as unlikely a pairing as Elizabeth and Vince).

Kathy is in a broom cupboard, Lynda will presumably never work again, Kirsty is supposed to be heading for the (Welsh) hills. I wonder what has happened to Ian and Roy?

It would be a good opportunity to introduce a new character.

Grey Gables must be one of the few hotels in England in tier 1.

I'd hope that by now the producers/SWs have plotted a way forward for GG - and we just haven't heard it yet.

(I know I'm labouring the point, but the age gap between Oliver and Tracy could be almost exactly the same as that between Caroline and Guy! And just as believable - well, much more believable than - a whirlwind romance and convenient heart attack. ... I still remember Caroline's voice on the phone that day. Was awful.)

Tracy will know what to do with it - once she owns it.

Gavin may be able to get a deal if he hands over Philip and Victoria. Does he have enough conscience to do that yet?
Kirsty is subject either way

Grey Gables must be one of the few hotels in England in tier 1.
We are still tier 2, too close to Brum to be Tier 1.

Did I hear right, that Victoria thought that Blake was only worth £20? I assumed that a Horse was a valuable commodity but maybe, if you no longer need labour, they are more trouble than they are worth. If released into the wild (so to speak) they may blab to whichever authorities take them in so it's best to pass them on to someone who will continue to keep them below the radar, preferably in a different geographical location. I can't see why else the Mosses would take the time and petrol-money to go to Lichfield for a measly £60 return.

I thought people liked Tracey? I have never been particularly interested in the character but I wouldnt wish Oliver on her. She needs a break not more caring which is what it would be in a matter of years.

I can't see why else the Mosses would take the time and petrol-money to go to Lichfield for a measly £60 return

I thought that was odd and assumed I had misheard.

What does Tracy want for her children? This new focus on her maternal responsibilities is at least intriguing

Perhaps trying to step back from the lazy WC single mother who doesn't care about education? That comment that she wanted something better for her kids is much more akin to real attitudes IME.

i thought £20 was cheap but I guess ‘disposal’ of a slave is a risky and specialist market.

It looks like Philip picked the lads up from the streets and trained them himself.

Did I hear right, that Victoria thought that Blake was only worth £20?

Blake isn't currently useful, though, so he has no value as a working slave, he's just a cost in food and other living overheads, so as a commodity, he's worthless.

I think Gav is seeing them also as humans, but hadn't the nerve really to stand up to hus father and Victoria - even Philip didn't really sound like he'd stand up to Victoria.